The term, “emerging-missional church”, favored by Australians and Kiwis, seems to tie together the two strands of missio dei and missio ecclesiae in one phrase. Without the missional, emergent is just style. Without the emergent, missional pours the new wine backwards into old containers, and often without regard to context.

Thats why I like to keep the combination of words intact.

Good distinction, and without focusing on it, also provides a helpful counter to the whole confusing emerging vs. Emergent language discussion that comes up from time to time. The compound term is not at all new, but this serves as a good reminder. For a variety of reasons I’m going to gloss over for the moment, I’d like to suggest that this term without explanation also better reflects the Canadian thrust of the church that is emerging, and may yet become the term that ’emerges’ as the preferred one to describe what we’re on about. At least, I for one hope it does.